Most people have never heard of hyperbaric oxygen therapy—until they suddenly need it. Used in wellness centers, elite sports teams and medical clinics to treat everything from sports recovery to non-healing wounds, hyperbaric oxygen therapy and the pressurized chambers that deliver it have quietly become one of the most important technologies in modern medicine and the science of longevity.
What most people don’t know is that the design revolution behind these cubicles didn’t come from a Silicon Valley startup or a European industrial design studio. It came from Istanbul and is largely the work of one person: Tolga Kabak, CTO and co-founder of HPO TECH Hyperbaric Systems.
Tolga Kabak, CTO and co-founder of HPO TECH Hyperbaric Systems
©HPO TECH
©HPO TECH
©HPO TECH
©HPO TECH
©HPO TECH
HPO TECH operates at a rare and challenging intersection: diving technology, aerospace engineering and clinical science. Its chambers are used by biohackers, professional athletes and hospitals. And the reason they don’t look anything like what you’d expect a medical device to look like is entirely on purpose.
Engineering meets architecture
Hyperbaric chambers are pressure vessels. By definition, their primary engineering mandate is structural integrity under high pressure — not comfort, not aesthetics, not the psychological experience of the person inside. This was the accepted orthodoxy of the space for over a century. Tolga Kabak decided to challenge it.
A mechanical engineering graduate of Trakya University with a master’s degree specializing in hyperbaric oxygen chambers, Kabak spent years running operations at several hyperbaric companies before concluding that the industry was solving the wrong problem. The technology worked. The design does not.
His answer was to create the Hyperbaric chamber ZEUGMA — now one of the most replicated hyperbaric designs in the world, adopted by high-profile figures including longevity pioneer Brian Johnson. The picture behind it was disarmingly simple: a chamber is not just a pressure vessel. It is a place where people spend hours of their lives. It should be designed accordingly.
“Traditional hyperbaric chambers are designed almost entirely from an engineering perspectiveKabak explains.Safety and pressure resistance are of course the top priorities. However, my team and I at HPO TECH asked ourselves a simple question: why should a technology that saves lives look like a machine that people are afraid to step into?“
His response shaped everything that followed. “I don’t just see it as a pressure tank, but rather as an architectural environment that works under pressure. I paid special attention to spatial perception, light and visibility, interior volume, materials and psychological comfort during the design process. My design philosophy is very simple: advanced engineering should not get in the way of creating beautiful and comfortable spaces.”
Design for the human experience
Claustrophobia is one of the most common barriers to hyperbaric therapy. Many patients feel significant anxiety the first time they enter a ward – a reaction that is completely understandable given the way most wards look and feel. HPO TECH approached this not as a clinical problem to manage, but as a design challenge to solve.
The solution focused on openness and transparency. HPO TECH booths feature panoramic observation windows — unusually large by industry standards — along with spacious interior volumes, soft upholstery and ergonomic seating and reclining configurations. Multiple window sizes and settings are available depending on the application.
The result is something that constantly surprises early adopters. As Kabak notes, most people who step inside for the first time say it’s more like being in a space capsule than a medical device. That reaction, he says, is exactly what the team is aiming for.
Making this possible was not simple. Integrating large windows into a pressure vessel is, in Kabak’s words, one of the most challenging problems in hyperbaric engineering. Any opening in a structure designed to safely contain pressure affects structural integrity — that’s why conventional chambers keep their windows small.
HPO TECH took a different approach, designing the transparency from the ground up rather than treating the windows as elements to be added later. This shift in methodology—from engineering to experience first, without compromising either—is what sets the company’s work apart.
Design the language as a language of love
What drives someone to spend a career pushing the aesthetic and experiential limits of mechanical pressure? For Kabak, the answer is linked to a lifelong fascination with systems where human experience and extreme mechanical constraints collide—aircraft, submarines, space capsules, advanced medical technologies.
“What fascinates me about these systems is that the laws of physics impose very strict limits. In my view, the most interesting design emerges precisely under these circumstances. Limitations do not diminish creativity. they reinforce it.“
It’s a design philosophy that feels closer to architecture or industrial product design than to medical device manufacturing — and that interdisciplinary thinking is arguably what allowed HPO TECH to disrupt a field it didn’t see as disruptive.
The future: beyond treatment, towards research
HPO TECH does not stop at treatment. The company is currently developing multibaric systems — platforms that can simulate hyperbaric pressure and hypobaric altitude environments within a single unit. The TAMPA project is the most visible expression of this direction: a technology now used in longevity, antiaging, neurological rehabilitation and athletic performance research at Arizona State University.
This research has already attracted worldwide attention. Using HPO TECH technology, Joseph Dituri and the Arizona State University Healthspan team reached the semifinals of the $101 million XPRIZE competition — selected from 765 teams worldwide — for their work on reversing aging.
“It is possible that hyperbaric systems will evolve beyond therapy devices and become advanced scientific research platforms,“Kabak reflects.”From both a technology and design perspective, this transformation will redefine the way we think about human environments in medicine.“
It’s a vision that feels completely consistent with everything HPO TECH has already built: a future where the most demanding mechanical constraints don’t produce cold, functional objects, but environments where people feel calm, curious and cared for. In a field defined by pressure—literally—this might be the most radical design statement of all.
Next Level Engineer: OYSTER
Having redefined what a hyperbaric chamber could look and feel like, Kabak is now working on something even more ambitious. Code name: OYSTER.
The case is a complete re-examination from the first principles. As Kabak puts it:The design of pressure vessels has remained largely unchanged for more than a century. Most systems are still cylindrical steel structures. With the OYSTER we decided to forget everything we thought we knew and just design a hyperbaric chamber completely from scratch, using the best materials and the best science we have access to today.“
The name reflects the form. Directly inspired by the shape of an oyster shell, OYSTER features an oval, organic geometry rather than the traditional cylinder. Its upper lid opens upwards, like a shell. Inside, the system is modular — users can sit or lie down depending on the configuration. The prototype is currently in production. “OYSTER is not just a pressure vessel,” says Kabak. “It is designed as a new type of anthropocentric living capsule.”
